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title Herbert Spiegelberg gave to his monumental history of phenomenology). Not onlywas phenomenology never a “school” of philosophy (as Spiegelberg readily allowed), itwas not even a Movement in Spiegelberg’s (capital-M) sense of the term, i.e., a general,multifaceted trend of thought but one having a well-defined “common core” (this, as onemight say, “hard core” being for Spiegelberg the disciplined, disinterested, and patientsearch for “essences” by means of a direct, intuitive grasp or “seeing” (Wesenschau) andfaithful description of phenomena and their “modes of givenness” [to, as Spiegelberg says,“our inner eye”]). Husserl, as we know, hoped that his attempt at working out an ultimatescience of being would be carried on after him by a dedicated group of researchers whowould, in concerted teamwork, penetrate ever deeper into the field of pure subjectivity,mapping out ever more completely its essential, a priori, necessarily determined configurations.But this was not to be. In contrast to certain other trends in philosophy, there wasnever anything like a phenomenological orthodoxy -- or even a phenomenological orthopraxy.Certainly, there is a particular way of doing philosophy which is recognizably“phenomenological” and which makes for a definite set of “family resemblances” amongits practitioners, but this is not to say that there is anything like a specific and commonlyaccepted “phenomenological method.” Perhaps the most that can be said in a general wayabout phenomenology as it has unfolded over the course of the last century is that, to usea term of Merleau-Ponty’s, phenomenology is a certain “style” of thinking (expressive ofa “phenomenological attitude”), the “essentials” of which are an unremitting aversion toall forms of metaphysical reductionism and an abiding concern for the integrity of ourown lived experience of things both human and natural. Whether this particular style ofthinking -- this tradition -- can be expected to survive or even to flourish in this new centuryis another question. In the realm of human affairs, nothing is certain, but, given the recentrenewed interest in the leading figures of classical phenomenology, and given also thesignificant number of new phenomenological organizations continually springing up, thereare grounds for being, if not optimistic, at least hopeful in this regard. 171One thing that can be safely said, I believe, is that there exists no better conceptualapparatus than that of existential-hermeneutic phenomenology for counteracting the everpresentand seemingly ineradicable, naturalistic tendency on the part of humans to reducehuman beings to that which is purely objectifiable (and thus manipulable) about them. Thetask of contesting this scientific-technocratic, anti-humanist, or “engineering” approach tothings human, and recalling humans to their own humanness remains the indispensabletask of any phenomenologically-inspired philosophy, both as a “pure” or general philosophyand in its “applications” to the different realms of the socio-cultural, the political, and theeconomic lifeworlds. In all these domains the supreme theoretical/practical task must bethat of defending the claims of communicative or dialogical rationality (Vernüftigkeit) overthe imperious demands and one-sidedness or “monologic” (as Gadamer called it) of merelyinstrumental or calculative rationality (Rationalität). 172 In this respect, “phenomenology”is not just the name for a twentieth-century school of philosophy which may or may nothave passed its zenith, but indicates, rather, what remains one of the most crucial tasksof thinking and which, as such, is something that, as Merleau-Ponty would say, still hasall of its life before it (see PriP, 190). By its very nature, the truth of the phenomenologicalproject can never be a “completed” truth (une vérité accomplie) but must remainalways what Merleau-Ponty called vérité à faire.171At the present time, there exist some 117 phenomenological organizations world-wide. Forinformation on developments in phenomenology, contact the web site of the Center for AdvancedResearch in Phenomenology (CARP) directed by Lester Embree .172See in this regard my “Critical Theory and Hermeneutics: Some Outstanding Issues in the Debate,”in Lewis E. Hahn, ed., Perspectives on Habermas (Chicago: Open Court, 2000).50